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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675626">The Weight of Desperation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarmoons/pseuds/sugarmoons'>sugarmoons</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Auror Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, St Mungo's Hospital, Stabbing, sorta - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:14:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,766</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675626</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarmoons/pseuds/sugarmoons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry gets stabbed during an auror mission. Draco struggles to cope whilst he fails to spell his fiance back together and has to do everything in his power to make sure Harry makes it out alive.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Drarry26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Weight of Desperation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry's shirt was blooming with red.</p><p>The dirt beneath him turned crimson as blood gushed from the wound where the cursed knife had stabbed him through the middle. Being an auror sure did come with its cons.</p><p>Everyone around him was screaming, Ron, the other assorted aurors and Draco. Who had come bounding over to him the moment the knife ripped through his skin. </p><p>“Come on,” Draco kept repeating, casting charm after charm, “Come on you goddamn bastard.” There were too many spells used to count but nothing was sewing the hole back up. Nothing was working.</p><p>Harry blinked, drowsy, head spinning, “It’s okay, love, it’s fine.”</p><p>Streams of tears poured down Draco’s face, “It is not okay! You idiot. Why couldn’t you stop being the fucking hero for once.” The salty tears stung his face as he wiped them away, he couldn’t be blinded by his emotions. Not in the literal sense at least.</p><p>One of the muggleborn aurors was putting pressure on the wound, begging the pressure to keep the blood from pulsing out the other side. Magic wasn’t their ally this time, they needed to fall back on old means. </p><p>Ron, eerily calm asked, “Will he survive apparition?”</p><p>The team of aurors looked at each other. The answer was very clear. Harry wouldn’t make it and if he did, he’d be even closer to death’s door than he already was.        </p><p>“We’re too far out to carry him back, we’re going to need to risk it,” Ron announced after looking around, desperate for another option. Draco wasn’t alone in his panic and worry, he was just the only one granted the chance to be in a state. Everyone else needed to be strong, people died when other people were frantic.</p><p>Draco looked up, straight at Ron, eyes a mix of anger and hurt, “You’re asking me to let you kill him.”</p><p>“I’m asking you to give him a bloody chance. He will die in these woods, Malfoy, we have no choice but to apparate and pray that it goes well.”</p><p>Harry choked on his blood as it came up his throat causing him to splutter below them. Draco darted his attention back and gently lifted Harry’s head.</p><p>“It’s going to be fine, you are going to be fine.” Draco didn’t know who he was reassuring. Harry or himself.  </p><p>Harry smiled, his teeth stained red. He was delirious from a mix of blood loss and adrenaline, “It’s all going to be okay, Draco, I promise.”</p><p>Then he blacked out.</p><p>“We need to go, Malfo    y,” Ron yelled, “Apparate now or I’ll do it for you and I can’t guarantee that you’ll still have both legs.”                       </p><p>With no other option Draco apparated with a quick snap. Harry laying white in his arms. </p><p>“We need a healer!” He screamed, his eyes still adjusting to the bright, white light that reflected off the walls, blinding him in comparison to the murky woods. </p><p>Heads turned at the sudden interruption in  St. Mungos waiting room. Harry’s blood dropped onto the linoleum floors. </p><p> “Fucks sake, do something,” Draco screamed again, the weight of Harry’s dying body causing him to collapse to the floor. His trousers became soaked with the blood and multiple healers came rushing over to him.</p><p>“What happened?” One asked.</p><p>Draco’s breaths became faster, “Cursed. Knife. Magic. Doesn’t. Work. Help!”                     </p><p>Harry was levitated onto a gurney, Draco refused to let go until he needed to. Everything was moving far too fast yet not fast enough. He went as far as they would let him and then slumped into one of the scratchy chairs. Harry needed surgery if he wanted to survive. Old-fashioned muggle style with stitches and a blood transfusion. </p><p>It made Draco sick not knowing what was going on or how it worked. They were taught basic first aid at auror training but not muggle surgical skills. Everything that was happening beyond those two doors was a complete mystery to the wizard. And it killed him.</p><p>His leg bounced up and down, his nails were bitten down to the skin and his face was stained with wet tears that now refused to fall. It was a bitter wait. Full of silence and nurses breaking the silence with their useless updates.</p><p>“They’re trying their best.”</p><p>“They’re doing everything they can.”</p><p>“We’re sorry we can’t give you better news.”</p><p>It was torturous. Words that meant something but didn’t give him anything on his fiance.</p><p>An hour passed. Then another. Then Ron went and brought Hermione in, who handed him a lukewarm coffee that tasted horrible. They waited with him. Ron rubbing circles on the back of Hermione’s hands, Hermione chewing her lip. </p><p>They weren’t really friends. More like strangers who had some weird connection due to Harry. Except they knew Draco back in school, when he was a dick and needed to get his views in order. And Draco hated them because they seemed so bloody happy despite everything else. Draco was never an optimist but considering Harry was being operated on he needed to try and be a little more positive. Which in the scheme of things was incredibly difficult.</p><p>By the fifth hour, Draco went to the bathroom and vomited until his stomach was empty. The stress still turned everything inside him inside out but he felt less like his lunch was churning inside him like a boiling pot of soup ready to overflow. When he sat back down in his uncomfortable seat, Ron was crying.</p><p>Small tears. Small, quiet ones, that you wouldn’t have noticed unless you looked at him properly. Hermione was leaning against his shoulder whispering something Draco couldn’t quite hear. </p><p>He was the first one to speak between them, “He’ll be alright.”</p><p>He couldn’t quite believe himself. His thoughts were screaming that Harry was certainly not alright. That he was bleeding away on the operating table whilst some healer failed to keep him alive. The only tether he had to grasp was the fact they hadn’t sent them away, they’d kept them sitting, waiting, for an answer.</p><p>Then he laughed, and it was a terrible laugh. It was inappropriate and the old woman who sat across from them glared with her beady eyes but he still laughed. </p><p>“He’s the boy who lived!” He cried almost too loudly, “When has Harry ever met death and not given him a good old ‘fuck you’. If he doesn’t survive this then someone needs to be sacked.”</p><p>Ron joined in on his hysterical laughter and Hermione smiled. A weak smile but still a smile nonetheless.</p><p>“He’s right ‘mione. When have we not known Harry to cheat death?”</p><p>The minister of magic shook her head, her mane of curls moving with it, “He’s been in there too long not to be okay.”</p><p>Draco’s laughter halted, “We better hope so.”</p><p>They looked at each other. Harry in some strange way had made them all go crazy in a hospital waiting room. Crazy and hopeful and goddamn exhausted with worry.</p><p>When the nurse finally walked in they stared at her with desperate eyes. She stared back at them and for a second their hearts fell.</p><p>“He’s stable. He’ll be asleep for a few more hours but he’s all stitched up and everything seems to be in order.”</p><p>“Can we see him?” Draco asked, not giving her a moment to go on about what happened. Right now he didn’t care he just needed to see that Harry was alive and okay,</p><p>The nurse nodded and guided him to Harry’s small hospital room. </p><p>The auror lay there his hair brushed from his forehead making his lightning scar far more obvious. He was in one of those blue hospital gowns that made him look skinnier than he really was and though he had had multiple blood transfusions he still looked pale.</p><p>Draco toppled to his knees next to the bed and grasped Harry’s limp hand. Ron and Hermione had made sure Harry was okay and then promised Draco some space.</p><p>“Next time I’m running in front of you and taking the hit. I can’t do this waiting shit again. It’s horrific.”</p><p>Harry stayed asleep. Resting with that peaceful look that was reserved for those who were so far gone in their dreams that nothing can wake them. Draco kneeled next to him for hours, leaning on the bed for support. Ron and Hermione popped in for a bit to say their peace but Draco didn’t budge. There was a whole other hand they could hold if they wanted to.</p><p>By 3am Draco couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He fell asleep right next to Harry, his head resting on the rough hospital sheets. The night replayed all over again as he slept.</p><p>The group of dark wizards were slinging curses at him one after another. Bright spurts of magic shooting towards every member of his team as they battled it out on the forest floor. Then one pulled something out of his pocket. A knife by the looks of things, with a sharp tip and a gleaming blade. Draco didn’t have time to formulate that it was cursed before it impaled Harry and they apparated away as his team grew distracted with their fallen friend.</p><p>The golden boy was bleeding out on the dirt and all Draco could hear was his own screams, his throat was so hoarse from them powering out of his throat. He clung to his fiance as he tried every spell in the book. When nothing worked he just wanted to scream louder. </p><p>Before he could watch Harry’s blood gush anymore he woke up. The sun sprinkled into his eyes through the window which he forgot to cover with the curtains the night before.</p><p>“Morning, love,” Harry greeted him, his voice was gruff. A combination of morning roughness and stress.</p><p>Draco managed a ‘morning’ back before he completely crumbled into a mess of tears and rambles.</p><p>“Don’t you ever do that again!” Draco scolded, “I was so worried. You absolute idiot.”</p><p>Harry grinned, “It’s not like I meant to get stabbed.”</p><p>“‘It’s not like I meant to get stabbed’” Draco mimicked, “Well, you still bloody did. I’m marrying an idiot with a hero complex, merlin save me.”</p><p>Harry looked at him with his gorgeous green eyes, they were full of apologies but he felt the need to say it aloud, “I’m sorry, Draco. I promise to be more careful.” He tugged at Draco’s sleeve like a small child, “Now come cuddle, I’m freezing.”</p><p>Draco climbed in beside him, “I love you so much.”</p><p>“I love you too.” Harry returned.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I haven't written angst like this in a while. I will also add I know zilch about medical junk and according to my friends Harry probably wouldn't have lived through being impaled so apologies for that slight inaccuracy.</p><p>Anyways let me know what you think!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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